Twitter - How To Pass 2,000 Following Limit and Use Twitter as Sales Channel

// Article is for advanced twitter marketers, not for beginner level
// More about twitter 2,000 following limit brentcsutoras.c0m/2008/08/11/twitter-limits-following-to-2000/

II'm reading BHW for a few months and this is awesome place! In the spirit of 'take all and give little back', this is my first post here.

I'm experimenting with twitter and after first few days of steady grow I learn about 2,000 people following limit. Just like me, most people fall into twitter trap, having between 1,000 and 2,000 followers. You can't follow any more people (and get follow back from them) and your natural daily grow is 2-3 followers...

And most people quit. No matter how difficult the task is I never quit.

So I wait for about 2 months, doing other things. And finally, I get magic 2,000 followers, when I was following about 2,150 people. I expected that limit is released and Twitter give me now opportunity to follow more people, let's say another 1,000. But it didn't happen! I quickly understand that there is still limit - approx. 200 people between following and followers. I.e. if you have 2,000 followers, you can follow only 2,200.

Let's take a look at alternative approach. I call it 'cleaning method', â€˜throwing apples' - throwing people that we are following and they are not following us. You'll be surprised with numbers! It's at least 50% or more of your following number. i.e. if you following 2,000 people - 1,025 or more is not following you. Btw, this is my real numbers!

2. If you have running some auto-follow script (auto-following all people that are following you), shut it down! The fastest way is to change your twitter password. Later, you can use back old password and script will still running.

3. Go to friendorfollow.c0m and enter your twitter username (rare thing - no need to provide your twitter password). You'll get number of people that you follow and they are not following you back.

4. You can double check your results before you throw out them at doesfollow.c0m, but I don't suggest you to do double check, and here's why:
a. Double check, double timeframe
b. If you throw out someone that is following you, you can still receive @reply from him (Enable it at Settings > Notices > Show me @ replies.
c. If you throw out someone who uses auto-follow script, no worry! Yes, you will instantly lose few percents of followers. But, they are salesmen or social media whores, not regular folks who are your target customers.

5. Open all avatars from first row in separate tabs. Go tab-by tab and click on "following" button and then at "remove" button to un-follow them. Then go back again and close all tabs. Go to next row. Rinse and repeat! It's very simple, let's the kid work for you...

6. In my case I have about 2,000 following and 1025 people that I follow and they don't follow me back.
After cleaning (now only 1,000 following), I have spot to follow new 1,000 people to reach 2,000 limit!
Plus there is 200 another people to reach bonus limit that I talk about in introduction. (formula: following-followers = 200)
One more thing. At the moment I had had have 2,200 followers, which is another 200 people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------TOTAL = you can follow new 1,400 people (1,200 +/- to be more precise)

2. Close all windows (All Friends, DMs, etc.) expect the Replies. In settings (top right corner, French key icon), Twitter API set replies response time to one minute or less (61% at 59sec). All Friends and DMs put on 0%.

3. If you spend enough time in you niche, you already know 2 or 3 main players on twitter as sales channel. How to see who is main player in your niche:
a. Search your niche keywords via search inside TweetDeck or use search.twitter.c0m
b. Search twitter+your niche/industry on Google News
c. Check on Wefollow.c0m or similar directory. Be careful, i.e. We fellow is still new service and it's possible (in my niche true) that the biggest players are still not there.

4. Add new search window into TweetDeck and enter @name_of_biggest_player_in_your_niche. You can add 1,2 or max 3 players. Close TweetDeck, enough for today.

5. Open TweetDeck next day. You'll get red notifications with number of new replies to @name_of_biggest_player_in_your_niche.

You can blind follow all new people in window without reading what they say (Call kid again ) or you can more wisely read what they say and only add specific people. This is way how to wisely get new 50-100 followers EVERY DAY. Not follow 500 people in two days and then again fail into limit trap! Nope. This is calm and steady grow.

7. Bonus: just like #4 you can add windows with your niche keyword and add people from them. Be careful! When searching keywords, there is a lot much twitter spam promotion and people just like you, they are not your target customers. And what I learn is that people who send @reply to big players in industry are like more to promote you!
a. Fist, they feel important and they are happy to discuss and send @reply to you. All their friends see your username when they send reply to you.
b. They are more like to promote (retweet or rt in twitter world) your tweets, your products and you.

Not to be rude or anything, i like your post and i like the concept.Yet, i had problems understanding what you were saying. I will try reading it 4 more times to see if i get it or i will wait for others to post here and explain what you were trying to say.

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